[cjs_ac]

The person reading Wikipedia and the person who visited the place are both beaten by the person who read Wikipedia and then visited the place. Reading about a place can point you to unique experiences that you would otherwise have missed.

A deeper point, I think, is about being the kind of person who would read about a place. I know a few people who get excited about going on holiday, and excitedly tell you about it when they get back, but they just end up talking about the places they went drinking and the people they met, possibly with some Instagram pictures that look exactly the same as everyone else's Instagram pictures of that place. There's a lot of people in the developed world who just go travelling because it's a thing that people with money do: they're not even interested in learning about a foreign culture.

[knuckleheads]

In a world full of people who read Wikipedia first and, generalizing some, actively look for other people's opinions via online reviews and reading up about the history of a place before visiting, I feel that the more unique experience overall be to show up and actively experience the place on your own outside the opinions of others.

I've traveled a fair amount now, and I think there's value to showing up someplace and letting it show you what you should know and experience, rather than letting the internet intercede between you and the world around you. I would add a fourth category, the person who shows up and finds something cool enough by walking around that they feel compelled to then read Wikipedia about it. For me, it would beat out the other three you posit, but that's a matter of taste I think.

[dguest]

Or you visit and then read the Wikipeida article. I mean even better as a double-decker wikipedia sandwich, but good as long as you read it.

I spent my last 3 hours in Hungary reading about the 1957 revolution [1]. The whole city was out celebrating the anniversary with funny-looking flags. I felt like an ass for not knowing about it before, but I learned.

The author is right that you don't magically become cultured by traveling. But you also don't become a Shakespeare expert by reading all his plays. That doesn't mean you should read the Shakespeare Wikipedia article instead.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956